Countdown for blast off. X minus five, four, three, two, X minus one, fire. From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future. Adventures in which you'll live in a million could be years on a thousand maybe worlds. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine presents X minus one. Tonight's story, Sam This Is You by Murray Leinster. If I were you I wouldn't believe a word of this story. I'm still not sure if Rosie does and as a matter of fact I'm not so sure if I do myself and that's going some because it happened to me. And if I can't believe it, well who can? I suppose it could have happened to anybody although on the other hand maybe it couldn't have happened to nobody. And that's pretty mixed up so maybe I'd better begin at the beginning and in this case that's not so easy as it sounds. For one thing there's the question of where is the beginning? Well anyways I'm Sam Yoder. I'm a telephone lineman for the Batesville and Rappahannock Telephone Company. I got into that line of work because I was in a wire platoon during the war. I've been up more trees in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium than anybody except maybe a couple of squirrels and they didn't have to string telephone wires. I guess it started because Rosie, she was my girl Rosie, she thought I lacked ambition. And also get up and go. Yeah anytime you say honey except it's one of those jitterbug things and I can't jitter much. I don't mean dance, I mean stick-to-it-iveness. Now honey that's ridiculous. A telephone lineman has more stick-to-it-iveness than anybody or he'd fall right off the pole. Huh? One other drink? Sam are you trying to get me drunk? No, well only there's a 350 minimum in this place and I hate to see it go to waste. I'm discussing your future Sam. Okay. Do you think a telephone lineman's life is right for you? Well, has its ups and downs. Sam. I'm sorry. I warned you once more and I'm going to ask you to take me home even with a 350 minimum unexpired. Okay honey. Now what are you doing to improve yourself? Uh, nothing I guess. Why don't you take one of those correspondence courses? You know the ones with the picture of Arthur Godfrey and he says I was awful in high school arithmetic till I sent in the coupon. What does he need with high school arithmetic? It's the principle of the thing. Sam I'd hate to think I was engaged to a man who didn't improve himself. Well I'll figure something out. You don't want to spend all your life with your arms around a pole. What was all right with George Sand? Is he working at the company now? No, no, no. George Sand. She, she was in the... She? Yeah, sure honey. It was a pen name. You see she was in love with Chopin. You get it? No. Well he was a pole. You see? Arms around a pole. You get it now? Yes. Now I get it. Sam, take me home immediately. She's like that. No sense of humor, know what I mean? But listen, when you climb up and down telephone poles all day you get tired of something that's straight up and down. Rosie was a refreshing change. Know what I mean? Well huh. But she had something. I mean in the conversation. So I started taking those electronic courses, you know. I'd been at it a couple of months when I asked Rosie to come down to my basement. I certainly will not. Why not baby? Sam Yoder, I'm a respectable girl. Honey, if I had anything else in mind would I ask you to leave a nice comfortable porch swing to go down to a whitewashed concrete basement? I guess not. Okay. Come on. I want you to see something. What? It's a big surprise. Right here, over on the bench. Take a look. Sam Yoder, have you been taking Papa's television set apart again? No honey, not... Last time you got the channels mixed up and all Papa could get was Jane Mansfield. Mama had to finally take the fuse out and hide it. It's not a television set. It's my invention. Oh. What does it do? Well I got the idea at the shop. I was looking at the blueprints of the multiple circuit stuff. You know, how to send a hundred messages over the same wire. Well I got this idea about how to have private conversations on a party line. Actually I got the idea calling you up with the whole street listening. Does it work? Well, almost. I got a few bugs in this mess of garbage here. Sam, that's no way to talk. Well honey, all the engineers talk that way and they're college men with fraternity pins. Well, then I guess it's all right. When will you have this fixed up? Oh, I don't know. I'll have to tinker with it a little. It's just like you honey. Sam, you do not have to tinker with me. Honey, I mean electrically like you. High voltage and a lot of current but too much resistance. You get it honey? I mean like an electrical circuit? Resistance... I get it. Sam, take me home immediately. I was thinking of my invention the next Friday, July 2nd, about six o'clock. I was up a pole near Bridges Run hunting for a break where the party line went dead. I hooked in my linesman's phone but I couldn't get central. I was just about to pull my phone and get down when... Hey, that's impossible a line checked out dead. Hello, who's this? Sam, this is you. Huh? What's that? This is you. You, Sam Yoder. Don't you recognize your own voice? This is you, Sam Yoder calling from the 12th of July. Look, Mac, I'm working and I'm 50 feet up. Don't hang up. I'm not hanging up but you'd better. Now wait, wait a minute. Do I know you? The voice is familiar. Sam, it's the 2nd of July where you are and you're up a pole by Bridges Run. The line's dead in two places or else I couldn't talk to you. Lucky, huh? Whoever you are, it isn't going to be lucky for you. But I'm you and you're me. We're both the same Sam Yoder. Only where I am it's July 12th where you are it's July 2nd. You've heard of time traveling? Well, this is time talking. You're talking to yourself. That's me. And I'm talking to myself. That's you. And it looks like we've got mighty good chances to get rich. Look, I don't believe this. All right, then listen. Do you remember the time I, uh, you were out with Rosie at the drive-in movie over at the Wain? And the couple in the convertible next to you were naked. And then Rosie... Well, never mind what he said. It was something only me and Rosie would know about. Nobody else in the whole world. So I knew he was me. I was he, him. We were the same. He told me, uh, he told me what he wanted me to do. And then he told me where the brakes were in the line and hung up. Well, I cut loose down the pole and my irons only hit it twice from the top to the bottom. I was sweating and shaking a little and it didn't help any when I found the two brakes right where the voice said it would be. But that wasn't any more impossible than anything else. I called into Central and told him I was sick, which wasn't particularly untrue anyway. And then I went home and made myself a cup of coffee. And pretty soon I was muttering to myself, which I don't say now in order to make telling the story easy. But I do it all the time. Like this. You got a good cup of coffee here, Sam. Oh boy. Instant but strong. Now there isn't any weak mindedness in my family and the company psychologist said I grew up stable. Was it inner stable? Well, anyway, nobody but Rosie knows I told her her nose is so cute. I couldn't believe she ever had to blow it. Maybe it was me talking to myself. Don't let Sam. Don't mind if I do. I talked to myself just sitting over coffee. Why shouldn't I talk to myself on the telephone from the middle of next week on a deadline? I wonder if that psychologist was right. More coffee, Sam? Just a little to hot it up. When? When? When? Now look, if somebody drove over to Rappahannock past Dunsville and telephoned back that there was a brush fire at Dunsville, I wouldn't be surprised to get to Dunsville and find a brush fire there. So if somebody phones back from next Tuesday that Mr. Broaddus has broke his leg next Tuesday, why should I be surprised to get to next Tuesday and find out he'd done it? More coffee, Sam? No, thanks. I couldn't touch another drop. See what I mean? Pretty soon I began to realize there was money in this thing and I got to work on my invention, the one I meant to use for private calls on party lines. I got out the soldering iron and a bunch of components I liberated from the phone company and I started to rearrange the circuits the way that voice on the telephone had told me to. It was a real breadboard job with wires hanging out of it like spaghetti, but finally I was done. I spliced my gadget onto my phone, then I broke the line to Central, rang it, and half a minute later... Hello? Hello? Hello, Sam, this is you in the second of July. You got it all fixed up, huh? Yeah, it looks awful. Well, that's okay. You can straighten it out later. Okay, Sam, now we get rich together. Look, Sam, I want to ask you a few things about this gadget. Now, you know where those four transistors are hooked up bridging the... Look, Sam, you mind if we don't go into that right now? Yeah, but I want to know if I reverse the leads, will I... Some other time. Well, if you're too busy to talk... I'll tell you, I am kind of busy right now. You'll understand when you get to where I am. Look, I worked six hours on that thing because you said to it... Don't get mad, Sam. I'll tell you what. You go see Rosie and tell her about this and have a nice evening. Ha ha. What do you mean, ha ha? You'll find out. Knowing what I know, I'll even double it. Ha ha, ha ha. I went over to Rosie's house. Her old man was watching Diana Doors on the television and her mother was watching her old man, so I took Rosie by the hand and let her out onto the porch. I could see the moon glinting off eyeglasses as all the neighbor ladies leaned forward in their porch rockers to watch us. I always felt a responsibility to those ladies and usually I try to make it worthwhile to them staying up so far past their bedtimes, but tonight I had other things on my mind. Sam, you didn't slick down your cowlick. I've told you if you go on a date without slicking down your cowlick, it shows you have no respect for the girl. Rosie, forget my cowlick. I could go inside and get some mustache wax. Pa keeps it because his crew cut always goes limp when the humidity gets above 60%. Rosie, will you listen to me? I've made up my mind to get rich. You ought to have everything your little heart desires. Now suppose you tell me just what you want. I want your cowlick to lie down so I won't be ashamed in front of the neighbors. No, no, no, honey. Mink, chinchilla, sports car, anything, whatever you want. Do you feel all right? Now listen, honey. Nobody knows it, but tonight Joe Hunt and the Widow Backers are eloping to North Carolina to get married. We'll find out about it tomorrow. And day after tomorrow on the 4th of July, Dunsville is going to win the baseball game with Bradensburg 7-5, all tied till the 9th inning. And then George Peeby is going to hit a homer with Fred Holmes on second base. There was a brief silence interrupted only by the sound of Pa's rocker going over as he tried to get a better angle on Diana Dores. I don't know how many times I've explained to him, you can't improve on the view on a two-dimensional TV screen by craning your neck. But he says you can't overcome a lifetime of habit. Well, anyways, I explained to Rosie about Sam in the week after next telling me all these things and how we were going to get rich. Sam, somebody was playing a joke on you. Oh, yeah? Well, who else but me knows what you said that time you thought I was mad at you and you were crying down behind McHenry's ice house. Sam, I told you when I read those words on that board fence I didn't know what they meant. And nobody else knows about the time we were picnicking and the bug got down in the front of your sun-backed dress and you thought it was a hornet. Sam Yoder, you never told anybody about that. No, but the me in the week after next knew, he told me, so he had to be talking to me. It couldn't be anybody else. Sam, either you've told somebody else everything we ever said or did or else there's somebody else who knows. That's awful. But honey, it's me. This other person knows everything we say, even now? Sure. Sam Yoder, you go home. But honey. Do you think I'm going to talk to you when somebody else listens to every word I say and knows everything I do? Do you think I'm going to marry you? But Rosie, it's just between the 12 of us. You, me and me next week. Rosie. I stayed around until her father came out and asked me to go home so Rosie could finish crying and he could watch Hell's Angels on the Late Show in peace. On the way back to my house, I got madder and madder. Sam, in the week after next, could have warned me about this, the louse. Well, I plugged in my gadget and rang and rang, but I guess there was nobody home on July 12th because there wasn't any answer. And there wasn't any that night when I got home from work either. So I went around to see Rosie. The only reason I'm talking to you, Sam Yoder, is that Pa's inside sneering at Dorothy Kilgallen on What's My Line and I don't think it's polite. Still mad at me? I never was mad at you. I'm mad at whoever was talking to you on the phone and knows all our private secrets. And I'm mad at you if you told him. Well honey, I didn't have to tell him. He's me. All he has to do is just remember. I tried to call him again last night and this morning, but he doesn't answer. Maybe he's gone off somewhere. Do you think it's polite to sneer at Dorothy Kilgallen? She knows so many important people by their first names. Lots of them even for short. You think maybe it's all an illusion? You told me last night there'd be an elopement and there was. Joe Hunt and the widow Bacchus, just like you said. Well, could have been a coincidence. I'm waiting to see if Dunsville beats Bradensburg 7 to 5 tomorrow. Yeah, I bet $11 on it. If that happens, I'll die. Why honey? Because it'll mean that I can't marry you ever. Because somebody else will be looking over your shoulder and we would never be by ourselves all our lives, day or night. I hate you. The next day in the big Fourth of July ball game, it was tied in the ninth. Then George Peebee hit a homer with Fred Holmes on second base and Dunsville beat Bradensburg 7 to 5. I collected my bet, but the $11 turned to ashes in my mouth. I didn't go over to Rosie's that night. I stayed home and kept trying to call myself up on that gadget that I told myself how to fix up. It was a moonlit night, the kind I usually spend with Rosie while her old man watches the million dollar movie for the seventh time on TV hoping that the ending will come out different. But there I was in the basement trying to call up the week after next and nobody home. In the morning I woke up sudden. I thought it was the alarm clock, but it wasn't. I left the gadget on. Wait, wait, don't go away. Wait. Hello. Don't get upset, Sam. Rosie's gonna make up with you. How do you know what she's gonna do? She won't marry me with you hanging around. I've been trying to figure out a way to get rid of you. Quiet. I'm busy. I gotta go collect the money you made for us. You collect money? I get in trouble and you collect money? I have to or you wouldn't get it. Now listen, where you are, it's Wednesday. Now you're going over to Dunsville today to fix some phones. You'll be in Mr. Broadus' law office about half past ten. Now you look out of the window and notice a fellow sitting in a car in front of the bank. Notice him good. I won't do it. I won't take orders from you. Maybe you're me, but I make a bet and you collect it. For all I know you spend it before I get to it. Now I'm quitting this business right now. It's cost me my girl and my peace of mind and the blazes with it. Okay? Okay, Sam. Just wait and see. The trouble with a story like this when you tell it is there isn't any suspense like one of those old movies where a gypsy fortune teller tells George Raft he's gonna be head gangster and fall in love and finally get shot by his best friend played by Ralph Bellamy. And then the rest of the picture just goes like a local commuter train following a schedule. Well, sure enough, I was ordered over to Dunsville to fix the phones in Mr. Broadus' office. Well, at half past ten I happened to look out of the window and there sitting in a car with the motor running was a reddish-haired man. And suddenly two other men come running out of the bank carrying bags. Mr. Harrison, the guard, is shooting at them. And they're shooting back. And the car takes off like a big bird and shoots out of town. And Fred Hale comes tearing after him in the squad car right down Olympia Street. Unfortunately, Mrs. Monroe was turning left into the supermarket parking lot. She happened to be coming from the far right lane. And so the bank robbers got away clean with $35,000. They'd cut all the wires out of town where they crossed Goose Creek and so they sent me right out to fix it. I was up the pole right next to the creek working and, like usual, talking to myself. Sam, Sam, do you realize what that was? A bank robbery. You, in the middle of next week, told you to come over here and watch a bank robbery. But you didn't tell yourself what for. You didn't tell yourself to stop it. Sam, that other you is a born crook. Then I realized it wasn't another me. It was me a week and a half later. If he was a born crook, so was I. Nothing could happen in a week and a half to change character like that. I couldn't even turn myself into the cops because nobody would believe it. I suddenly realized I was an accessory before and after the fact of that bank robbery. And then I realized there was only one thing to do. That night I drove over to Rosie's house. Her father had a jacket and tie on because he was expecting to visit her supreme highness, Princess Grace of Monaco, and slap see Maxie Rosenblum with Ed Murrow face to face. I took Rosie out to the porch just as the Princess invited Ed and Rosie's old man into a closet to see her shoes. Sam, what's the matter? You look awful. I am awful. Rosie, I come to tell you goodbye. I just found out I'm a criminal, so I better go and commit my crimes far away from heart and friends who would be hurt, hurt, hurt. Sam, what's happened now? That bank robbery. I knew all about it before it happened. I called myself up and told myself, but I didn't let myself stop it. Don't you see? I'm an accessory both ways against the middle. I'm a criminal. So, Rosie, goodbye. Sam, you sit right down. Oh, it's in the blood, I guess, or the genes. What do you think of my case? It was environment rather than heredity. Now, Sam, you haven't done anything yet. It's that other you. But I'm going to have done something. I'm doomed to be a criminal. Well, I'm going to reform you. What? I'm going to reform you before you start. I'm going to stay with you from now on, every place you go. But, Rosie, I climb poles. I'll wear my tapered slacks. You won't do anything criminal with me along. And if that other you starts talking to you on the telephone, I'm going to climb the pole and tell him where he gets off. And that's just what she did. Wherever I went, Rosie went right along with me carrying a 10-inch crescent wrench in case of emergencies, wearing her tapered slacks, which looked real good because, as a matter of fact, the slacks taper just a little more than Rosie does. Well, she made me stay over in her brother who was away in the Marines' room and locked me in at night. It went on that way for a couple of days. Rosie looking grim all day, not even holding hands or playing footy in the diner over coffee. We spent the evenings in her living room while her father watched Meet the Press and asked Nixon and Key father questions that they never even answered. I complained to Rosie that we had all the disadvantages of being married a long time without the obvious advantages. But her father told me to keep quiet and stop interrupting Steve Allen. Well, finally, on the 11th of July, we were driving in the phone company truck that Rosie was driving to make sure I didn't commit anything criminal like crossing the double white line and not stopping for a school bus. Do you realize tomorrow is the 12th? Yeah. That's the day the other you called you up from, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. Well, I've kept you honest. If you turn into a hoodlum between now and tomorrow... Rosie, look out! That car! Now look what you did. Is the other man hurt? He's getting out of the car. Rosie, that here. Rosie, that's the man who... Get down! He's shooting at us. Why? He's the man I saw outside the bank. He's one of the bank robbers. Look out! He's coming this way. He looks awful mad. Why not? We smashed his getaway car. Rosie, get behind me. I'll protect you. The fellow came up to us holding his gun and looking pretty upset. And he was just about to say something when Rosie reached over my shoulder and hit him on the head with her crescent wrench. I took a length of wire and my pliers and I had his hand spliced behind his back before he came to. We threw him in the back of the truck and took him into the sheriff at Dunsville. He confessed right away and told where his buddies were hiding out. Rosie locked me up in her brother's room again that night and then it all came clear to me. In the morning, Rosie came out on the truck with me again and she was still trying to reform me. I let her come along but inside I was grinning. What are you sneering about, Sam? I'm not sneering. I'm grinning. Rosie, do you realize there's a $5,000 reward for those robbers and we get it? Well, I'm still worried about that other you. Oh. Well, we'll take care of that right now. Sam, what are you doing? Just a minute, honey. I've got to climb that pole. Sam, what are you doing up there? I've got to make a call, honey. Hook up my little gadget. Now. Hello, who is this? Sam, this is you. Huh? What's that? This is you. You, Sam Yoder. Don't you recognize your own voice? This is you. Sam Yoder calling from the 12th of July. Look, Mac, I'm working and I'm 50 feet up. Don't hang up. You see, it was me all the time. Here it was in the 12th of July and I was talking to my wife. You see, it was me all the time. Here it was in the 12th of July and I was talking to myself back in the 2nd of July and it was the same conversation word for word. Oh, Sam, then it was you all the time. Back in the 2nd of July, he's cussing me out just the way I did and he'll fix this gadget up the way I just told him. Then we still have our secrets. Sure, honey. I'll remember when I call me up tonight 10 days ago, I'm going to be very busy and I won't want to waste time talking to myself a week and a half ago. Now, Rosie, what do you suppose I'll be doing tonight that would make me not want to waste time talking to myself 10 days ago? Hmm, Rosie? Oh, Sam, we'll have all tonight to ourselves. There's a big spectacular incompatible color with Esther Williams and Pa will spend the whole night twisting the dials trying to get the color right. He'll be furious. But your set is black and white. That's why he'll be furious. Well, how do you like the nerve of me calling me up and interrupting me at a time like that? Well, it won't take long, honey. I haven't got too much to say to myself this time. Well, that's the way it went. Rosie and I got married. Like I say, I wouldn't believe this story if I was you. Of course, what with horse races and things like that, we're doing pretty well, but that could just be good luck. But folks around this part of the country don't want to bet with me. I am the only one in the country who want to bet that Don Larson would pitch a perfect no hit, no run game in the World Series. You see, I had a little advance information. You have just heard X minus one presented by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, which this month features of all possible worlds by William 10. A story which demonstrates that changing the world is simple. The trick is to do it before you have a chance to undo it. Galaxy magazine on your new stand today. Tonight by transcription X minus one has brought you Sam. This is you. A story from the pages of Galaxy written by Murray Leinster and adapted for radio by Ernest Kenoy featured in the cast were Larry Haynes as Sam and Pat Hosley as Rosie. Your announcer, Fred Collins X minus one was directed by Daniel Sutter and is an NBC radio network production. For eerie tales that set the scene for witches flights this Halloween here sleep no more tonight.
